I enjoy the great privilege of working at AGGS and teach a yoga class on a Wednesday evening from 7pm to 8.30pm in our Drama Studio in our Fairlie Building. All are welcome to join us; this is a general class and suitable for complete beginners to yoga or those looking to deepen their practice. A booklet of 6 tickets costs £35 or you can drop in and pay weekly at £7 per class.
I study yoga with the British Wheel of Yoga and am in my final year of a rigorous teacher training programme. I have practised yoga for as long as I can remember but it became a much bigger part of my life about 15 years ago.
The class is a mix of styles and includes physical posture work, a focus on breathing well, a light sprinkle of yoga philosophy and relaxation techniques. I have a strong mindfulness practice and like to use this in my classes aiming to move us away from a state of constant doing towards a place where we can simply be for 90 minutes.
My earliest memories of yoga are seeing my mum get up early each and every day to practice yoga using a record to guide her through a short series of asanas. As a child of about eleven I was into gymnastics so liked to get alongside her and was able to get into shoulder stand, dog down and back bends with ease. It was easy to think what all the fuss was about when I was young and supple and preferred running around to slowing things down! I wished I had paid more attention in my youth because although I visited yoga a number of times in my youth it wasn’t really until reaching my late twenties that I started a regular class and practice. I wasn’t as supple as I’d been at eleven and found this a bit of a revelation.
However, I was quite keen to look good in the postures and wanted to be the best in the class. It has taken me quite some time to leave all the striving behind and realise that yoga is about me and my experience. It’s about working at the edge of my comfort zones but not about the fact that my neighbour can balance in tree pose for longer than I can. It’s about working with my body and my mind and focussing on each and every posture letting go of whatever else is on my mind. I always feel better after yoga. Somehow breathing into areas of tightness and concentrating on how my body feels physically and emotionally releases tension and pain. This in turn makes me much more aware of tightness and tensions off the yoga mat which enables me to bring the calmness I feel in the yoga class into my daily life. I am more accepting that life is what it is and that every experience is an opportunity for learning. I am much more aware when my emotions run high and am much better at allowing myself time to respond to situations rather than simply reacting which probably results in unsatisfactory outcomes all around.
My mum still practices yoga daily and is now almost eighty! She tells me it has increased her flexibility, kept her bones strong and been a constant support through good times and bad. It was with amazement that she informed me she performs pranayama in the bath daily and that this not only clears her mind but reduces catarrh and blocked sinuses. I hope that I am still able to practice yoga when I reach this age. She is even still performing her shoulder stand although says it is not as good as it once was.
Finding time for a daily practice is now sacrosanct to me and I have to get up very early in the morning to ensure it happens. I include some asanas, pranayama and a sitting mindfulness practice. Like my mum I find it sets me up for the day physically waking me up and giving me energy and freeing up my mind from repetitive and unhelpful thought patterns. Although it is hard to make the time I find I am more alert and more efficient as a result of the 30 minutes I spend in practice. It really is good value!
aggsyoga 